having and holding
by Victoria LeRoux
Summary: As her people sing and dance and drink and wish their sorrows away, Dis, last of the line of Durin, has no room left in her heart for anything but regret. Spoilers for BotFA.


If you're looking for a happy fix-it, I refer you to the fix _twenty years (and one full circle) later_ that I published last night. If you're looking for angst and feels, this is probably your spot. I actually started writing this back in the summer and was inspired to complete it after watching the latest movie.

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There's something to be said of the world after a battle.

Dis has heard the glory the poets have granted to her brother, her sons. She has heard them proclaim Thorin '_King of all Dwarven-Kings' _and her sons as shining examples of dwarven loyalty. She's heard their people drinking, heard the bards toasting, heard them laughing and feasting and merrymaking.

Perhaps that's why Dis walks in the realm at the edge of night, why she paces a battlefield of sorrow and shame as her people rejoice at the liberation of their home. Perhaps that is why she kicks at an axe shaft and watches it tumble down a hillside as icy as her heart. There's still blood on this battlefield, still flecks of frozen lifeblood darkening pristine white ice, and Dis doesn't know if the coming winter can erase the stains. Perhaps the green spring shall melt away their sorrows, or perhaps it shall only reveal more bodies waiting for burial.

Perhaps that is why, as her people sing and dance and drink and wish their sorrows away, Dis has no room left in her heart for anything but regret.

She wanders almost aimlessly, looking without searching, seeking without any desire for discovery. Dis passes the spot where her kin and kith stood against ranks of orcs and doesn't stop. Dis is afraid that if she looks back, she won't remember how to look forward. She's grieved with the deepest of sorrows, has regretted with the fiercest of hearts. Dis knows that now, now that she's seen her home used as kindling for the second time, that she must finally move on.

She may not be crowned a king but Dis hails from the bloodline of the greatest of dwarfs to walk Middle Earth. She may be no soldier but Dis has trained with sword and shield and spear and none have ever found her wanting. She has known the finery of jewels, has stood before mountains of gold, has felt the whisperings of the dragon-sickness and has stood firm. Against the void of her grief, all Erebor's gold finds no purchase.

She climbs, slowly and steadily. At last she reaches the landing and halts, breathing in the fresh, cool air before releasing a slow hiss of exhaustion. This is the place the she-elf had carefully directed her to – had carefully outlined out in a memory etched by blade and blood - before the elf, too, deserted their cursed halls. This is where her second son fell to the orc-scum, following his brother in death as he always had in life.

Dís stands on the cold stone, and thinks it right that her sons died in this watchtower. At least they perished among the stones they bled for, and the sky they had roamed under for so long. Perhaps her wandering sons have found a place to rest at last, as betwixt and between homes as they had ever been.

Dis nearly stumbles on a pebble as she moves forward and for a moment, blind, seething rage fills her. She's aware of the exact distance from her son's deathsite she is now (a good eight paces) and until now she's been able to, if not ignore, then disregard, the stench of despair in the air around her. She can't help but wonder if this rock caused one of her sons, _her brother_, to falter in the midst of battle and fall at the weapons of the Orcs. Dis can't help but feel angered, can't help but want to howl her fury at the cold fates. The heirs of Durin had been extinguished in a single day, and all but one of Durin's true blood had fallen. Their destiny had been a cruel one, and Dís wishes she could rail against the world as utterly as she wishes.

Instead of screaming her rage, she takes a step back, pulls her booted foot back to kick at the stone –

\- and stops.

Then she's scrambling in the snow like a pauper and her fingers close around the rock. She could recognize the stone in the darkest of nights, the deepest of caves. Dis clutches it to her for a moment, hand clenching and relaxing in a steady rhythm as she struggles to soothe her ragged thumping heart. She traces runes lovingly etched into place, wishing she was like the dwarrowdams of legends past, wishing that a mother's love could defy a destiny carved in stone.

The rock, a lovingly polished slab of rock, sits dead between her fingers. She had stayed awake the night before brother took her sons on their grand journey, had carved deep into the rock in hopes her feeble call would remind them both of home. The keepsake is still slightly warm from the overhead sun and Dís can't help but recall the warmth of her only sons clutched tightly to her chest. The memory stings with utter finality, with the piercing lance of agony that only truth can inspire.

If her shoulders shake slightly, she can blame it on the cold of the night. If her eyes grow bright, she can blame it on the ash still lingering in the air. If she sits, it is because the climb was long and tiring and she has spent days moving rubble and bodies. If she runs her fingers over the runes, it is because she uses it to anchor herself to the present.

But if her breath catches, she cannot blame it upon anything else than the aching hole in her heart, a hole once filled by a brother and two sons.

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Please leave a review! I'd be delighted to know your thoughts/discuss the movie with you!


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